The Wedding
by 3Jane
Summary: In hindsight, it was going much too easily for Jin. AU farce: het, yaoi, and fluffy as a sack of bunnies fresh from the dryer.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't own _Samurai Champloo _or any of its affiliated characters, nor do I make any money from this work; and I'm fairly certain Shinichiro Watanabe did not envision this for his characters. (Although he _could_ have, what with his awesomeness.)

A/N: This is a completely AU farce, and not to be taken seriously in any form whatsoever: yaoi, het, eel bowls and canon butchery will all occur. Rated soft R/M, but this might be bumped up in later chapters. Many, many thanks to Gallo de Pelea, for sparkly beta-ness.

For FarStrider, 'cause it's her birthday (YAAAAAY! Woo!).

* * *

_**The Wedding**_

_Act I: invitation_

* * *

In hindsight, he should have known the whole thing was going much too easily for him.

* * *

"I thought you wanted one of those big, western-type weddings with those dresses that make the women look like cakes?"

Fuu picked a morsel of chicken off his plate and popped it into her mouth. "I can't get rid of those last ten pounds," she said, swallowing.

"Ah."

"So, who are you bringing?"

"What? No one."

"Oh, come _on_. You're going to be sitting by yourself at my wedding, Jin, and I'll feel bad and then Nagamitsu will try to cheer me up. Do you remember what happened last time he did that? "

He did, vividly — what _had_ happened to that dog, anyway? "I could bring Uncle," he offered.

"Nooo! You _can't_."

"Why not?"

"Because that would be lame!" She turned sideways on her stool to face him, plucking at his sleeve. "Jin. Believe it or not, you're _twenty_-_six_. You aren't eighty years old, even if you dress like you are. What was the last thing you did that was fun?"

Jin sighed, straightening his blue pullover. "As far as I know, _this_ is supposed to be fun. And no one cares what I wear under my lab coat."

"This doesn't count. If you didn't meet me here, I'd hunt you down and drag you away from your microscope."

"Working in the garden at the temple?"

She narrowed her eyes. "That _really_ doesn't count," she told him.

"I signed up for a sparring partner at the dojo," Jin said.

"Jin. Your life is sad _and_ boring," she told him, and swiveled back toward her food with a face of determination; the last time she'd looked like that, she'd entered them — and a hapless foreign exchange student from their school — in the local tryouts for _Iron Stomach Japan_, he remembered uneasily. "I'm going to fix that."

"This is going to involve eel bowls, isn't it?"

"No," she said, thoughtfully. "Unless you're into kinky stuff."

"What?"

"Nothing. The only thing this might involve would be getting you laid, which, considering how wound up you are, would be a good thing." She gave him a fondly exasperated look, as a businessman sitting next to her choked on his soda.

Jin rubbed at the bridge of his nose, sure his head was about to explode. "Will you be — I don't think the _cook_ heard that."

"Come on. When was the last time?"

"That is none — "

"It was crazy Yuki, wasn't it?"

"I am not discussing this with you. And he _wasn't_ crazy."

"Uh-huh. Look, he was _gorgeous_, but that was years ago and you can do so much better than pretty crazy boys." She leaned in closer, her face serious. "And he was too pretty, you know? When guys look like that, they don't have to know too much because someone will want to sleep with them anyway. I bet he was boring."

"Fuu — "

"I mean, just look at Nagamitsu. He's got Elvis hair and he makes the weirdest faces, but you would _not_ believe what he can do. I asked him once and he said he read a lot of manuals," she told him thoughtfully, chewing on the end of her straw. "But really, Pilates and yoga didn't hurt him, either."

"Fuu," Jin said, desperate to stem the tide of conversation, as the businessman gave up all pretense of interest in his lunch or anything other than eavesdropping. "I can find someone on my own — thank you, but I don't want you to set me up with anyone."

"Oh, _I'm_ not setting you up. You're going to find someone."

He raised an eyebrow. "No."

Fuu gave him an angelic smile. "Nagamitsu loves one of the music mixes from the aerobics classes," she said, apropos of nothing. "A lot."

His eyes narrowed. "What do you mean, 'a lot'?"

She shrugged. "There_ is_ going to be dancing. It's his wedding, too, you know."

"All right." Jin nodded at the server, who began totting up their bill. "How bad could it be?"

"You are familiar with the Bee Gees, I think?"

His hand froze inside his pocket as he reached for his money. "You _wouldn't_."

"I would."

"You hate disco!"

"So you should feel happy that I care enough," Fuu said, voice full of sincerity, "to put myself through this for you."

He glared at her over the top of his glasses, not answering.

"Okay. Do I need to point out that it would be one date? _One_. I'm not telling you that you need to get married. It's just for fun." She deftly snagged the grease-stained bill as soon as the server dropped it on the counter. "I've got it, as long as I get to torture you today. Besides, it's Nagamitsu's money."

"Hn."

"Come on, Jin," she wheedled, thrusting a fistful of yen and the bill at the cashier as she herded him outside onto the sidewalk under a plane tree. "I'll help you."

"No."

"Pleeeeeease?"

It was remarkable, he decided, how she could go from polished office lady to orphaned five-year-old in the space of _seconds_; even on an average day, she was inhumanly cute, but to add in a quivering lower lip and tears welling in wide doe eyes — he probably looked like some horrible anime villain about to tell Princess Sparkly-Fuu Kawaii he'd made curry out of her pet kitty, while twirling the evil anime moustache he could almost feel sprouting from his upper lip. _Great_. _All I need now is gray hair, a katana, a case full of Red Eye, and an archnemesis with a green afro._

An elderly man out walking his dachshund brushed past, giving him a baleful look after catching sight of Fuu.

Jin held up his hands in surrender. "_Fine_. I'll do it."

"Really?" She grinned. "He should be cute, too."

"Fine."

"And nice."

"Okay. Yes."

"And like dogs."

"Pushing your luck, now," he said.

"Hm." She gave him a warm smile as she took his arm.

* * *

The next day, Jin allowed himself to get ready for work, leave his tiny apartment, and board the subway before thinking about the promise Fuu had extorted.

The wedding was five weeks away. In that time, he had to: one) find someone; two) find someone he could stand for a whole evening; and three) find someone he could stand for a whole evening, and who he could convince to go with him as his — gaaaah! — _date_.

He ruthlessly squashed down consideration number four — that the easily convinced someone, who was pleasant company, also would have a nice ass — and turned his attention to making up a timetable for himself.

Five weeks, he repeated to himself, staring out the train window as stations flickered past. He'd managed to sequence the proteins for _H. annuus _in four; finding a date should be —

— well, _impossible_, really.

It wasn't until the fat woman sitting next to him gave him a sharp look that he realized he'd been unconsciously rubbing at his chest, trying to soothe away the heartburn that was lurking there.

Jin gave her an apologetic smile. Great; he was scaring the other passengers on his train, thinking about this. Maybe he could get the department secretary to go with him, she knew he was gay, and this would be over and done —

"Girl trouble?" The fat woman cocked her head to one side, looking like a pigeon considering a particularly juicy beetle.

"Mm?"

"I have a son your age," she said, eyeing him critically. "You're too healthy to be worrying about being sick, so that isn't it. You look like you teach somewhere, so you're probably used to being poor; and the only other thing my son would ever look that worried about would be a girl."

Well, it wasn't _untrue_, strictly speaking — "Ah."

"If she makes you that unhappy, maybe you should look for a nice girl somewhere else," she said. "There could be one where you work?"

Jin let his eyes drift to the station map plastered above the door. Four more stops, so there was no chance of escape. What was this, _Ask Takeda Jin Personal Questions_ week? "No."

"Oh." She frowned down at the plastic carrier bag resting on her broad lap. "A friend?"

He shook his head.

She made a thoughtful noise. "What do you do for fun?"

His eyebrow twitched involuntarily. "Aikido."

"Oh." She reached over and patted his hand. "I'm sure you'll find the right girl someday."

Jin wondered if the lab manager still kept a bottle of antacid tablets at her station.

* * *

Jin shut the incubator door, peeling his gloves off as he walked to the sink at the end of the worktop. "Morning, Isaac," he said to the man sitting at the table.

Isaac finished making a notation on the paper and looked up from his microscope, smiling. "Good morning! I was thinking about you this last weekend," he said.

Jin's eyebrows drew together. "Mm?"

"I was out with my guidebook — there's a theater that dates back to Edo that I wanted to see; the book said it's supposed to be somewhere around that curry place we all went to last year. You remember, when we finished up _Pelagibacter_." The foreigner shook his head. "I was lost for hours. "

Jin frowned. "I don't know that area very well, but Edo . . . the buildings may be numbered in the order in which they were built. I'm not surprised you were lost," he said.

"In which they were built? That . . . makes no sense," Isaac said. "Anyway, I thought if anyone would know, you would. I would have phoned, if I'd had the lab directory with me."

"Ah." Jin stood a moment, thinking.

True, the man was someone from the lab — it wasn't that spending time with co-workers was discouraged, exactly; it was more that he'd be drawing from a pool of people with social skills as limited as his — and muscular Dutch dissertators weren't his first choice, but . . . his exuberance was _charming_, at times.

And it would be nice to have something to talk about at Fuu's wedding, because cake as a topic only went so far.

Jin made up his mind.

"I'm not doing anything tonight," he said. "If you aren't busy, we could walk down there and see if we can find it."

The other man's eyes sparkled, as Jin gave him a hesitant smile.

* * *

The phone started to ring as he turned his key in the lock; he toed off his shoes quickly and picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"I know I said you were going to do this yourself," Fuu's voice came in a rush. "But, oh my god — hot, hot, super nice guy."

"I don't know if I'm talking to you," Jin said, tucking the phone between his shoulder and ear before he turned the tap on to wash his hands. "I just got in from doing this myself."

"What, seriously? Why didn't you call me?"

"Mm," he hedged. "It was someone from work."

"Well, how'd it go?"

"_No_."

"Ohhhh! Why not?"

"Because after the play, he left with one of the actors." He shut the tap off and sat down.

"What?" she squawked. "Are you kidding? That's so stupid!"

"Ah."

"I mean, obviously there had to have been something wrong with _him_," she said thoughtfully. "It wasn't as if he knew this person before, was it?"

"I don't think so," he said. "After it was over, he insisted on going backstage to meet her — "

"Wait. What?"

"Kabuki."

"Oh. But you asked — ?"

"No, no, he's gay. I don't think he knew that wasn't a woman," he said. "Once he realized, though — I think I could have set fire to the theater and he wouldn't have noticed."

"Oh, Jin. That's horrible."

"Not really," he said honestly. "It would've been just for the wedding. It could've been awkward at work. He's all right, just not for me."

"I suppose . . . what did he look like?"

"Hn." He rubbed the back of his head. "Disturbingly like Arnold Schwarzenegger."

A muffled snicker came from the other end. "You went on a date with Ah-nold?"

In her absence, Jin glared at the sink. "What? No. It wasn't a date."

She giggled. "I'm telling Nagamitsu, you know," she said, and gleefully launched into a joke about David Hasselhoff as Jin rummaged in his pocket for another antacid.

_Maybe_, he thought, listening to Fuu as she botched the punchline ("'No, _I_ tore down the Berlin Wall!' Oh, wait, I forgot, the horse was at the bar too."), _I could bring earplugs to the wedding_.

* * *

Mercifully, the next day passed without event — the rest of the subway passengers left him alone on his way in, and Isaac had been too occupied with a tray of colonies to do anything more than grin and wave at him — until it was time for aikido; Jin set off from the lab, feeling better than he had since lunch with Fuu.

Tonight was a seminar night, as well, with students from another dojo coming to practice; it made a good change, he thought. He'd been at the dojo long enough with the other students there that he could have gone through the falls blindfolded, but with new people — it reminded him of what it had been like to start lessons when he'd still been wearing gakuran to school. He smiled at Master Mariya, who nodded at him from the center of a crowd of people in white gi.

He was just early enough, he realized. Jin changed quickly and made his way to his usual place, squeezing in next to a rumpled-looking man. The man gave him a dismissive look and went back to digging in his ear; Jin frowned disapprovingly at him as Master Mariya started the warm up. In response, the man yawned, widely enough for Jin to see his back teeth, and scratched his rump through his black hakama.

Jin's eyebrows drew together. The man couldn't deliberately be that rude here, could he?

Master Mariya shouted out the command to begin; the rude man turned to Jin and grinned. "Yo," the man said. "You gonna stand there with that stick up your ass, or you gonna come over so I can smack it out of you?"

Jin gave him a frosty smile. _What a jackass._

_This_ . . . would be fun, he decided, and advanced on the man for the first throw of the evening.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own _Samurai Champloo _or any of its affiliated characters, nor do I make any money from this work; and I'm fairly certain Shinichiro Watanabe did not envision this for his characters. (Or did he? _Hmm._)

A/N: Many thanks to Gallo de Pelea, for superbeta skills and all-round fabulousness.

For Farstrider, for her birthday. Happy belated birthday, m'dear!

* * *

_**The Wedding**_

_Act II: dresses with unfortunately placed bows_

* * *

Fortunately, Master Mariya spared Jin the effort of having to walk up to him after the seminar was over to complain about the horribly rude man; instead, Mariya came to him.

Jin made a creaky bow, his backside complaining about being dumped to the practice mat _that_ many times, on seeing that familiar receding hairline coming toward him. "Shishou," he said, sending a disapproving look toward the far end of the room, toward the strange man who was now looking over the rack of bokken.

The older man held up a hand. "I already know, Jin — I saw you two from the other side of the room."

"To be that discourteous in the dojo — I don't know what kind of place he came from, but he doesn't belong here."

Mariya gave him a stern look. "That is ungenerous, Jin," he chided. "Not everyone has had the same privileges you had."

Jin took a deep breath. " . . . of course. You're right, shishou. I apologize."

"Well, then. Be mindful that difference is not always wrong, and you'll live a happy life." The master beamed at him as he beckoned the rude man over to them, adding, "However, you are right to point out that_ that_ particular nail has not been hammered down. He'll need some extra work, I think."

"Shishou, I thought I saw tattoos at his wrists," Jin said in an undertone, as the stranger sauntered over to them, looking as unconcerned as if he were thinking about ice cream in the park. "I suspect he could be yakuza."

"All things are possible in this world. Ah, Mugen." Mariya's eyes twinkled at the stranger, who had come to stand next to him; now that the man wasn't actively trying to mash him into the mat, Jin saw, the stranger — Mugen? — was as tall as Jin was himself. "How did you enjoy this evening? I trust Jin didn't make it too easy for you."

"Hah." The man grinned. "I wondered what was up."

"We like to make everyone welcome, especially when they've come halfway round the world to be here. I believe you've already met my best student?" Mariya looked up at Jin meaningfully.

"Takeda Jin," Jin said, the unlooked-for praise making his face warm as he nodded.

"Name's Mugen."

A brief silence fell, before Mariya coughed. "Yes. Well. Normally, I would like a more formal welcome for a guest than this, but Nakamura advises me that he has at least a week's worth of paperwork for me before I can think of anything of the sort," he said. "And with a month left before the wedding, I should keep on top of things."

Mugen turned his head toward Jin. "Wedding?"

"Mm." Mariya's face creased in a wide smile. "A good friend of Jin's. The loveliest girl; she keeps her fiancé under her foot in the most charming manner — I will admit to being torn over whether they would prefer patio lanterns to a salad shooter."

"Fuu sets fire to her kitchen at least once a week," Jin said. "Nagamitsu will do better with lanterns."

"Really? The people on the television seemed very pleased with how the salad shooter was working . . . perhaps you're right. Still, as it is, I'm swamped. Fortunately," Mariya said, "Jin would be very happy to take you to dinner, Mugen. You don't have other plans this evening, do you?"

The stranger shook his head as a tiny muscle near Jin's eye began to twitch.

"Good. You can let Jin know you aren't a member of the yakuza, as he fears. And, Takeda-kun, you can have a bit of a head start on getting to know your sparring partner." Mariya half-turned toward the end of the dojo where the administrative offices were, giving Jin an affectionate glance — was that a _wink_? — that further softened the way in which he had just thrown his best student to the wolves.

Or, in this case, wolf.

"Now." Mariya made a shooing motion. "Go have your showers, boys, because you smell. And don't stay out too late."

Jin swallowed a retort, and headed in the direction of the dojo's locker room, the other man following a step behind.

The door had just swung shut at Mugen's heels, when the man opened his mouth again. "So. Yakuza?"

Jin turned from fetching out his towel in time to have a particularly dirty look sent his way. "You're not?"

"No, I'm not a dumbass who's seen too many Toshiro Mifune movies." Mugen pulled at the ties of his hakama with ragged fingernails. "What the hell kind of question is that?"

"The kind that thinks about the dojo."

"What makes you think I would be one of those idiots?"

"Your tattoos."

"Huh. No kidding."

"No kidding." Jin peeled off his gi and put it in his bag with the rest of his gear, hoping there would be some hot water left to work out the kinks; the day never started off right if he woke up stiff. He stretched gingerly. "You didn't know?" He tucked the towel in tighter around his hips, raising his head to find the other man watching him with an odd expression on his face.

"What?"

"About the yakuza and tattoos," Jin explained patiently. "You're fortunate — not every dojo allows students with tattoos."

" Yeah." Mugen held the hakama in front of himself, apparently lost in thought while scratching his neck.

Jin let out a quiet _hmf!_ of annoyance, ducking into the shower room with his soap. The good shower was open and he took it without hesitation; the new not-yakuza could take his stupid tattoos and use the leaky one at the end of the row, see if he cared. Interesting, though — the tattoos looked similar to ones he'd seen in _ukiyo-e_, that same rich blue-green. How did a foreigner end up with traditional inking? He rubbed lather into his hair, thinking.

He was nearly finished by the time footsteps splashed into the shower room and past him, down to the end of the room. Jin closed his eyes and let the water wash over his face, smiling to himself. _Ah._ _Yes. _There it was, the groaning of the building's pre-war plumbing, and then the intermittent spray from the shower; usually, whoever it was that ended up with the leaky shower ended up plastering themselves against the wall to catch the water as it cascaded directly out of the pipe. Which was stupid, really; the smart thing to do would be to move to a better shower. _Of course, then you get into having to move closer to whoever else might be in the showers, which no one ever does, because who would want to be thought of as a pervert_? _I wonder if perverts ever really did that, or even if there _are_ perverts left these days, although probably there are people with shower fetishes, and how would that even work — _

"Yo," Mugen said, turning the shower on next to him. "I need to stop off at my place before we go anywhere."

The soap shot out of Jin's grasp.

* * *

Mugen lived near the docks, not far from Nagamitsu's gym, in an apartment that smelled vaguely of old seamen. It was impossible to tell from the mess how long he'd been living there, or even how many people were living there: Jin counted at least two pairs of shoes of assorted sizes next to the door, with a fifth shoe that Fuu-organized shopping expeditions in Shibuya had taught him to recognize as a woman's kitten-heeled pump resting on its side atop the TV.

Mugen toed off his shoes next to the pile of footwear and made a beeline for a half-closed door set into the wall of the main room. "Right back," he called, before disappearing into the space behind the door. Jin nodded, and set himself to the serious business of looking around in earnest.

The place didn't look much like his idea of the home of an up-and-coming yakuza; for one, Jin decided, a self-respecting yakuza probably would have a table without the mummified rice clinging to the surface, or the greasy-looking cobwebs that hung from the underside. Inexplicably, there was a broken chair on the floor, parked next to a set of four matching chair legs that were leaning against a stack of cardboard boxes. The chair itself was holding a tall pile of magazines that teetered precariously away from the back, moments away from slithering into a heap.

Jin picked his way between some exotic pizza boxes from places he'd never heard of and a legless chair to the center of the room where the floor was clearest, trying not to think about what sort of bacterial stew he was standing in. Although, he told himself, the chances were good that there were enough species in the room that they were too busy trying to outcompete each other for the available resources to spend much time on him.

His leg brushed against the broken chair as he went by. There was the slither of paper against paper, and he lunged to the side to grab a magazine that had been dislodged by his passing. He stood up, looking down at it in bemusement. The other man was straight? That . . . _hadn't_ been what Jin was thinking.

The other man was doing something noisily in one of the other rooms — from the sound, he was running a box of nails through a clothes dryer — and yelled something out that Jin couldn't catch. "What?" he called back, bending lower to get a better view of the legless chair and the stack of periodicals on the seat.

He cocked his head over the glossy woman (who looked oddly bored with what was happening between her thighs, as if she was going over her grocery list in her head) and the octopus, feeling stupid and disappointed. Since when were straight men — especially the kind who appeared to be less into soap and more into picking his nose in public — his type? Maybe Fuu really had driven him crazy this time; impressive, considering Yukimaru hadn't been able to accomplish as much.

He closed the magazine and stooped to replace it, pausing as he caught sight of the one that had been underneath — a man on the cover with his head thrown back, another man kneeling between his legs with his mouth pressed to the first man's thigh. _Well._ Maybe not so straight after all.

Mugen poked his head out of the door. "Said, we supposed to wear hakama and gi every time we're at the dojo? Or do you tightasses loosen up during the week?" The man held a red t-shirt in his hand, the brown shoulder that was visible around the edge of the door frame still looking as smooth as it had in the locker room.

Not that he had noticed.

Jin cleared his throat. "Any student who aspires to the martial arts — " he began.

Mugen scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "Tightasses it is. I gotta do some laundry." He kicked something shut behind him and padded out of the bedroom, pulling the t-shirt over his head. It looked clean, Jin thought, squashing down the disappointment he certainly did _not_ feel at the other man putting something on over that sleek bronze skin. Mugen came up to him, yanking his shirt down in the back. "What you got there?" he asked, before taking the magazine. "With a _squid_? I know you Japanese like your fish, but damn." He shot Jin a wicked look.

"It was about to fall off the top. Are those all yours?"

"Not all of 'em." He flipped the magazine on top of the two men, the tattoo at his wrist a luminous blue in the dingy room.

"Really," Jin said, locking that tiny voice that was cheering in his head into an imaginary box and dropping it into a deep imaginary ocean. What the hell was wrong with him? "What happened to the chair?"

Mugen grunted. "Stuff on it was too heavy."

" — you broke a chair with _porn_?"

"So are we going to eat or are you just going to bust my nuts about the furniture? Jeez. Come on."

The restaurant was only a few blocks away, on a side street close enough to the docks that Jin could hear the grind of the boom and distant beep of machinery; Mugen walked in without hesitation, brushing aside the blue awning that hung in the doorway as delicious smells drifted out. Jin's stomach growled.

"Oi, Mugen," the man at the counter called out as they sat down, the other seven seats there empty. "Thought I might see you. Juve lost another to Noroeste." He twisted the cap off a bottle of beer and set it down in front of Mugen without asking, his face interested as he looked at Jin.

Mugen made a face. "Way they've been playing, the Holy Cross nuns could beat 'em. You want something?"

It took Jin a moment before realizing the last was directed toward him. "Tea?"

The counterman nodded and started filling an electric kettle with water. "You hungry? The wife made pastéis."

"I want some verde, but — what kind are they? Beef?"

The man shook his head. "She said cod."

"Yeah, then I'll have some of those too." Mugen turned to Jin. "You do spicy?"

Jin eyed them both. "Define 'spicy'."

The counterman and Mugen exchanged looks. "Moqueca," the counterman said; Mugen scratched his chin, nodding. The counterman set the kettle to boil and disappeared into the back of the tiny restaurant.

"What was that all about?" asked Jin.

Mugen shook his head. "So," he remarked, in the tones of a man changing the subject. "You ever been down here before?"

"I've been in the neighborhood, but not here." Jin cleared his throat. "You're Brazilian."

"When'd you pick up on that, Captain Obvious?"

"When we left the dojo. Strange — I would have said you were Okinawan."

"You know Okinawa?"

"A little. I was there for a conference last summer. You sound a little like the people I talked to — not much, but just enough."

"My grandparents were born there," Mugen said, picking at the red and white label on the beer bottle. "Went to Brazil right before the war and ended up living in Sao Paulo."

"They never went back?"

"No," Mugen said.

"Ah." There seemed to be something more required at this point in time, but from the set of the other man's shoulders, not that. Something safe. "You studied aikido in Brazil? Your style is — " — _crass and disrespectful_, Jin didn't say — " — unusual."

"Yeah." Mugen took a long swig of the beer, as relaxed again as he had been at the apartment. "You guys fight like a bunch of chicks."

Jin counted silently to ten, thinking of the many ways Master Mariya would be disappointed in him if the man returned to the dojo with the bottle a permanent part of his anatomy. "I see."

"For one, you move too slow, and two, no one looked like they were into it all that much." The other man tipped his head back as he drank, muscles in that strong brown throat working as he swallowed; Jin watched, fascinated, as the bottle came away from that wicked-looking mouth with a pop. "Three, no one else was having any fun. 'Cept us. You want one?" Mugen burped.

" . . . no. Thank you."

"Suit yourself, it's real Nova Schin from home."

"Ah? In that case, no."

Mugen propped his elbows on the table, dangling the beer from his fingers. "Did you just make a joke?" The corner of his mouth curled up.

"Mm. You still think of Brazil as home?"

A brief lift of the eyebrows, then: "Sorta. It's weird. You spend most of your life thinking about how much you want to leave a place, and the rest thinking about how much you miss it."

Jin nodded.

"Anyway." Mugen set the bottle down, pushing his chair back. "Funny dojo you got there. Your shishou tell you I needed some warm milk and a story about you pretty princesses before you tuck me in?"

"It was a courteous thing to do. Shishou must have great regard for your master," Jin said, keeping from grinding his teeth with an effort. "As he said, he wants you to feel welcome."

"Riiiiiiight." Mugen looked up at a clatter in the kitchen, his face brightening with naked greed as the counterman emerged from the back with a tray. "Finally!"

"Shut your yap," the counterman advised, setting a bowl of a greenish soup in front of him and a plate of what appeared to be some kind of fritters. "Or I'll tell your roommate his bar tab is due." He gave Jin a grin with a disconcerting number of gold teeth, and placed a plate of rice with what appeared to be some kind of fish in a yellow sauce ladled over the top before him.

"Yeah, well, stick this on his tab, too." Mugen set to with gusto, as the counterman poured out Jin's tea. "Not bad, Roukishi," he mumbled through a mouthful of brilliant green kale. "Not right, but for Bahia, pretty good."

"Thanks — I won't tell her you said that. She's already on my ass enough about making this place into a bookshop. I tell her, how many books do you think you're gonna sell down by the docks? She says she can do it. Woman's crazy." The counterman wiped his hands on a cloth. "You need anything else?"

"No. Thank you," Jin said.

"All right. I need to school one of the boys at shōgi, so yell if you want something." The counterman paused. "You play?"

Jin nodded. "When I have time."

Roukishi considered this. "Come back and I'll get the board out. _You_," he said to Mugen, "can drink my beer and keep quiet." He disappeared into the rear of the restaurant again as Mugen snorted.

"He never asked me to play," he said, flicking a look at Jin with disconcertingly pale eyes. "He must like you. And you can eat that, it's not gonna bite."

"Ah. Itadakimasu." Jin snapped open the wooden chopsticks. "You must come here often." He took a hesitant bite and his eyes widened. Surprisingly, it was _good_, the yellow sauce rich and tangy on his tongue; he applied himself to the food with greater confidence.

"Often enough. I work down here, so it's handy."

"On the docks?"

"Uh-huh." Mugen's response was muffled as he finished the last of the soup, swallowing a piece of sausage. "Why, you looking for a job?"

"No. Curious."

"Still worried about the dojo?"

Jin shook his head. "I don't think you're yakuza."

"You sure?"

"You like pissing people off too much."

Mugen let out a shout of laughter. "I knew it! No one's got something stuck up their ass that tight," he remarked, grinning like a wolf in the mood for hors d'oeuvres. "You're really human under there. Careful, you look like you're about to have a facial expression."

"You don't like pissing people off? As far as I can tell, you do very well at that."

"Nothing wrong with giving 'em a little push. Anyway, what's your story? You're Mr. Traditional — you must be the Emperor's roadie or a swordsmith or you work on scrolls being extra scrolly or something."

"I work in one of the Rikadai labs," Jin answered, with as much dignity as he could muster while holding a dripping piece of tomato.

Mugen speared one of the fritters. "Rikadai, huh. You a teacher?"

"No. My lab does protein sequencing of agricultural material — most of what I do is hydrolysing the proteins into amino acids before they're separated through ion-exchange chromatography."

"Uh-huh."

" . . . I heat things up to turn them into smaller things?"

"Oh." Mugen chewed, swallowed. "Sounds boring."

"It's not, really. Eventually it'll help in making some plants more resistant to disease." Jin set his chopsticks down. "Anyway, I'm not an instructor, I have a fellowship. Sort of like being ronin, in the academic world."

The other man nodded. "I get that," he said. "This fellowship permanent?"

"No. Once the project's over, I'll need to find something else. It's possible I might be offered a place as a lecturer, but I doubt it."

"Good." Mugen cocked an eyebrow, as Jin gave him a questioning look. "I still have to beat your ass. I don't wanna have to track you down to do it."

Jin chuckled. "You can try."

"You sure you don't want a beer?"

"No. But some sake wouldn't be inappropriate."

* * *

It was nearly midnight by the time they left Roukishi and his wonderful, wonderful sake: glorious sake, sake that made the Brazilian's eyes the strangest no-color, a mixture of gray and hazel and brown, like the sand of the beaches near Ise when there was a storm out at sea —

"You sure you're gonna be all right?" Mugen gave him an appraising glance. "You look like you're about to fall asleep. Or hurl."

"I am perfectly fine," Jin said, enunciating each syllable with care.

"Because the train station's — " Mugen broke off speaking as Jin fixed him with a resolute eye, the other falling slightly closed in a manner that was nothing but sober. "Nah, you'll be fine."

"Ah," Jin agreed.

"Yeah."

The weird camaraderie that had sprung up over the insults burst like a soap bubble, an awkwardness taking its place. "Well," Jin remarked. "Just a few blocks, for you."

"Right." Mugen cleared his throat and spat into the street away from Jin. "Guess I'll see you round, then."

"Mm."

They stood for a few moments, then: "Dojo have any open time? You know, if anyone wanted to get in a bit extra time on the mats."

"Monday nights," Jin answered. Had those sodium lights always been that orange? He blinked, the streetlights going wobbly for a moment as he did so. _Oh, bad idea._ "There's a lesson for beginners, but afterwards Shishou leaves the room open for anyone who wants some extra help."

"You ever go?" Mugen asked. "I'm just wondering how crowded it gets."

"Whenever I can. It's not that bad, usually."

The other man nodded. "Right. Later." He jammed his hands in his pockets and strode off in the direction of his apartment.

* * *

The next day — same day — was a Friday, which meant he was due at Nagamitsu's after work; for some reason, he'd promised (although his memory of the actual promising seemed less like willingly giving his word and more, say, extortion) to help Fuu do the seating chart for the reception.

"There's no way we're going to be able to keep O-sen away from the open bar, is there?" Fuu said without preamble as she opened the door for him. "I keep trying to think of how she could not be at the wedding."

"Mm." Bending to remove his shoes made his already-aching head throb like it was being beaten from the inside with a mallet.

"What if she 'won' a French vineyard tour — " Fuu squinted at him. "Jin, you look _terrible_. Tea. Now." She ushered him past the front room where Nagamitsu's children were playing with the dog, barks and giggling echoing off the walls as he followed her deeper into the house, coming out at last into a cavernous white kitchen.

Jin grimaced as he sat down at the enormous table, easing gingerly into the chair as Fuu bustled about. He pressed his fingertips to the space between his eyebrows. When had the children gotten to be so noisy?

She frowned. "What's wrong?" she asked, bringing a box of English tea bags and a pair of mugs out of a gleaming cupboard. "You're sitting funny."

"Nothing," he said, accepting a mug emblazoned with _World's Greatest_ _Dad_ on the front. "There was this Brazilian at the dojo last night."

" — wait, your ass is sore?" She froze in place, box forgotten in her hand as her mouth formed a perfect 'O' of surprise. "_And you didn't call me after?"_

"No! Nothing happened. It wasn't like that." He rubbed his forehead.

Her eyes widened. "Are you hung over?"

"No. Not much."

Fuu stood in the doorway and clapped her hands. "Okay, guys, let's go. Outside!" A waist-high tide of small children poured past her, squealing and bickering as they spilled into the garden outside. "Remember, don't come in unless you're bleeding!" she called after them, before closing the door.

A lovely peace fell over the house, the only sound the bubbling of the electric kettle coming to boil.

Jin chuckled.

"What?" She filled his cup and a Faye Valentine mug for herself.

He shook his head. "They like you."

She shrugged, her cheeks pinkening as she raised the tea to her mouth, which he saw was tugging into a little smile. "They're not old enough not to," she said. "Anyway, I don't have the first idea about how to be a mom, so I've been treating them like really short grownups."

He started to laugh.

"Oh, shut up." She took a sip, the corners of her eyes crinkling with humor. "You're trying to distract me from your Brazilian sex god. Now c'mon, spill."

He took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "He's an _idiot_," he told her. "The lowest of the low. He was picking his ear in aikido class, and he's rude, and he has the most disgusting table manners."

She sat up. "You went out for dinner with him?"

"Shishou asked me to," he said virtuously.

"Oh, right." Fuu crossed her arms over her chest. "'Jin, please take this gross man for dinner,'" she said, pitching her voice low to sound like Master Mariya, but succeeding only in sounding like she had a cold. "'And then maybe out to a movie, but remember, no tongue unless you've had a mint'? Uh-huh, right."

" . . . no." He gave her a sour look. "His master sent a letter of introduction to Shishou for him and asked if he could study at the dojo while he was here. It was simply good manners, that's all."

"Holding the door open for someone, that's good manners. Sending you for dinner with random Brazilians, that's setting you up with someone." She grinned. "He was cute, wasn't he?"

"Absolutely _not_," Jin said, the spoon tinking against the side of the mug as he stirred furiously.

The grin widened. "I'm sure Master Mariya didn't have any ulterior motives. Did the Brazilian have a nice ass?"

"No!" He sputtered mid-swallow, the hot liquid burning his throat as he coughed. "I didn't look."

"Ooooh." Her eyebrows rose. "Eh. Brazilian and does aikido, so I suppose that's a given. So come on. You're holding out on _details_. Where did you go?"

He shook his head. "A little place down by the docks. Not too far from the gym, actually. I didn't get the name of it."

"Really?" Mention of the restaurant distracted her momentarily. "How was the food? What did you have?"

"Good," he said. "Fish, I think; it was a stew. He had some sort of cabbage soup and fish . . . balls."

"Fish testicles?" She made a dismayed face. "_Ewwwwww!_"

"_Not_ testicles. More like small cakes, maybe? He seemed to like them."

"Although that could be a good thing if he was okay with having testicles in his — "

"Anyway, I don't even know if he is or not," Jin interrupted, hastily. "He looks like he should be the sort that's into the women who pretend to be broken down at the side of the road."

"Hookers?" Fuu looked thoughtful. "But isn't that sort of a lot of guys? The no-strings sex, I mean. Maybe he's just into . . . you know, getting laid. Doesn't mean he doesn't appreciate a nice biochemist."

He grunted in a noncommittal manner and drank some tea.

"Speaking of getting you laid, someone asked about you the other day." Fuu gave him a smug look.

"Who?"

"That mangaka — remember? We met him when you made me go to the museum when all the VanGoghs were there?"

Jin frowned. "The one who kept doing the thing where he made a frame with his hands?"

"That's him. Anyway, he said you should call him sometime."

"You just ran into him and he said I should call him?"

"I was buying something for Nagamitsu," she said. "Just — nothing exciting. I have his number around here somewhere for you." She got up and began to rummage in her handbag.

"What were you buying?" he asked, curiosity piqued.

A blush crept up her neck. "_Nothing._ Here it is!" She brandished an insert from a fashion magazine at him; as he took it, he saw a number scribbled on the back in ballpoint. "He lives in Chiba too, but closer in than you."

"I'll call him."

"Good. He's a nice man." She turned for a moment, listening to a lull in the noise from outside; it picked up again and she relaxed. "How's the No-Disco Campaign going? Nagamitsu's been making new mix tapes for the wedding, so if you want me to nip that in the bud I'm gonna need the name of a plus one for you."

Jin sighed. "Not well," he admitted. " Maybe I should . . . it's only an evening. It probably wouldn't be any worse than a night in the student dormitories."

"Oh, Jin." Fuu put her hand on his arm. "Is it really that bad out there?"

"I wouldn't call it bad. I have the lab. And the dojo and Master Mariya, and Uncle Juunosuke, and the boys," he said and smiled. "And I have you." He put his hand over hers for a moment, squeezing gently as she smiled back at him.

"What about sex, though? Don't you miss that?"

He shrugged, letting go. "Is it worth it?" he asked. "A good hour in bed doesn't make up for twenty-three that are unpleasant out of it."

"I don't know." Fuu cradled the mug in both hands, her gaze moving from his face to the surface of the tea. "Maybe — maybe it's hard not to try, I guess. I always used to think there was one perfect person out there for everyone, and once you met him, that was it. You wouldn't have to even think about it, because he would be so perfect that he would just know the perfect thing to say and do and after a while, you move into a nice condo and get a dog that never throws up on the kitchen floor.

"Except no one's ever like that, are they? Eventually, the perfect person ends up being a perfect person who catches a cold, and somewhere after listening to him work his way through his third box of tissues, he turns into just some guy. Or maybe he's mean to a waiter, or he never cuts his toenails, or something." She coughed. "I don't know. Maybe the perfect person is someone who makes you feel like you have to wake up every morning just to see what he's going to do?"

"Maybe."

"Meh. Don't give up yet, okay? Either way, I know there's someone out there who'll think you're as great as I do," Fuu said. "Maybe it's the mangaka guy, maybe it's someone you haven't met yet. Maybe it's even the Brazilian. My point is, you don't need to rush it."

"Hn."

"And if it is the Brazilian, we can always get him deported if you get bored with him."

"_Fuu!_"

* * *


End file.
